Ashes of Kyber
by Paradigm of Writing
Summary: A shard lies in wait. The ruined knight stands in the deep. The silver queen collapses to her knees. The rouge screams, her power flows free. Shadows lying in secrecy, tethered siblings of pain. The ash falls to the ground slowly, the finality of an empire in victory. Two sabers, connected side by side, as the ashes of Kyber fall, broken, with no light. (Star Wars Episode IX story)
1. Chapter 1: Awakening

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a story idea that I didn't think I do for a good long while, but after attempting it - and failing - for Game of Thrones I did want to try to do it for Star Wars, as I just came back from The Rise of Skywalker, and I am not extremely sure where my opinions lie... all I know is that this won't be what the movie was, as I think I have some abivalent feelings about it: didn't hate it, but certainly didn't love it. This did come to me shortly after seeing The Last Jedi, as I was thinking how I could write #9, and now that I've seen #9 I wish to return and actually finish what I started a good long while ago, as most of my points are still going to be in here, such as the return of Lando Calrissian and the Emperor, but this story will still deviate heavily from what the movie had presented, I'll be honest with you here, but I am very excited for the journey. Please enjoy Chapter #1: Awakening, of Ashes of Kyber.**

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Out there in the void lies a monster.

Across the blank, black expanse of space, lays in waiting a beast. A demon that bemoans over the galaxy, with a dark, rippling scar, black eyes that stare into her soul. A troublesome heart, an abyss where emotion goes to rot, an emperor sitting on the world stage. A throne for a king, a villain long enough to see the world crumble into ashes.

She feels him protruding into her soul. Snoke's tie has been severed, clear enough with the Sith's death. She expects it of him - the ruined knight with the red saber - to betray one power to another, and to then extend his hand. Though the words that come spilling from his mouth after the fact is not something she expects, it is almost sad to think that there's more she could've done to prevent it. Somehow. Something.

Except nothing returns to her.

_My queen. Mine. You can do it, _the voice whispers, poisonous in her mind. She wills it back, barricading the venomous thoughts, shuddering under the feel. Though they are not exactly his words, she's filled in the pieces and constructs another view entirely different from the expected. A dynasty, between two Jedi, hands tied, a fate tethered by a necklace of rope. It is a dark alternative to the other option. A supernova rising above the clouds, moving at the velocity of jumping into hyper space, with a radiant sun shining for all to see.

Or, a viler course of action. Where the sun turns crimson with the spoils of blood, fiery rains from above to scald and scorch the denizens of unsuspecting planets and star way systems.

Rey focuses her gaze on one of the rivets in the Millennium Falcon's wall, a smoothed over plate curved inwardly as a corner of the wall. Eyes stare back at her. Brown eyes. Green eyes. Blue eyes. Red eyes. Eyes she'll shut forever, and eyes that shut before she's even got a chance to meet them.

_Han. Luke. Snoke. Finn. Leia. Mother. Father._

Another shudder courses through her veins, and his mind snatches onto the discomfort like a beast catching it's fresh meal at the start of a new day.

She looks down at her hands, partly ashamed, though she has no idea why. _It's all his fault! He messed you up, and there needs to be something done for that. He's going to win. Maybe. There's no way I can tell the future, I'm not Luke. Luke isn't here, gone for sure. What do I do? What can I do?_ Rey 's skin feels dry, pulled back and scraped off as if she's in agonizing pain, boils and blisters lined up and bursting with feverish fervor. Her bones crack and break in the worst points, fingers constantly poised as if they're ready to strike, or that they're curled up around the saber that goes _swish-swish _into a Stormtrooper's skull. The taste of lucid copper fills her mouth, and the presence is warm and necessary and needed. Rey is no coward, as that feeling is foreign to her, but she's a coward at the thoughts of the future. Future is uncompromising, tantalizing, and terrifying all in one. It's all the ruined knight's fault for even thinking of introducing that to her! The possibilities.

The dreams.

Do they mean anything?

Rey stands up. It's late, the feeling of tiredness pulling at her bones and dragging her essence towards a bed, but she is unable to sleep. Sleep seems like a crooked fantasy, a Sith lord's head tilted her way with a beckoning finger. _Foolish child. Undeserving, impudent, idiotic, foolish, misguided. I could show you the ways of the Force. It is time for the Jedi to end. The end of the Jedi is under way._

"No," she says aloud, hands gripping the sides of her seat. "The First Order is ending."

Saying that out loud gives her comfort, some what, and it radiates through her soul. A warm breath cascades over her shoulders, into the synapses of her spine. He's there, somehow, somewhere, looking at her with as much hatred as he always does. The scar is befitting, she thinks he deserves it and perhaps much worse. She knows the truth, of him, of all he's ever stood for.

He's still sitting in one of the abandoned rooms, clutching the golden pair of dice. Ash and salt falls from the ceiling, sprinkles of old milling among the new. Blaster marks are scorched on the scratched floor, debris of one of the X-wings sitting in the corner. The stinging white of the Stormtroopers guarding him burn her eyes, but it is a foe she must face, head on or otherwise.

She knows that he knows she's there. It's impossible not to, the connection between them. An awakening, the revival of something deep and powerful. The revival of a burning deep down, though she cannot place what it is. Rey is hesitant to speak, but luckily he does instead.

Kylo Ren is attractive, she'll give him that, but nothing more.

"It is admirable to approve of your foes," he says, still perched on one knee, his gaze tearing through her.

"I do _not _approve of you," Rey hisses, advancing slightly.

He tilts his head to the side somewhat, a puzzled expression on his face. "How much of me can you see?"

"All of it. Every foul inch."

Kylo chuckles to himself, standing up, the chain of the dice swinging back and forth in his gloved hand. A metronome, a monotonous _tick-tock _of time that speaks of dread and grudges unfulfilled. His scar seems to blacken as he approaches, though it has only been a step. Neither of them look each other in the eye, her gaze averted upwards, his slightly downwards but at her all the same.

"I can only see you."

"Good."

"I do not know why that is. If you came from nothing, you shouldn't be above me in power."

Rey does not believe the words that she says after it takes a moment for her to recover from the stunned state she's placed in. "I- I don't know that."

"But I do."

"You seem quick and easy to dismiss yourself."

He gives her a telling look, almost breaking a grin, but it is more snark and vileness than anything remotely resembling happiness or humor. "Rey, you've said it yourself. You know of the struggle within me, and it _still _does exist, deep down. Not with Snoke, or with Luke... but with my mother."

"Do not use my name!" she hisses once more, her face twisting in anger.

This scum of the stars does not deserve to ever, _ever _utter her name. She does not give him the ability to do so, for ever likening the two of them on familiar terms. She's thought about it, in her solitude, by herself, actually. Taking his hand, but even then only for a time. _This is not going to go the way you think. _Luke is always right, _was _always right, it seemed. But, for a moment, what if she did? Take Kylo's hand? Would the walls of the world melt away like sulfur and erode the metal to its core? Would her heart shatter or stabilize?

Kylo narrows his gaze. "You didn't even ask," there's a sound of deflection and hurt behind his voice, only slight.

"Ask what?"

"My conflict with my mother..."

"Princess Leia is not-"

"I couldn't do it," he interrupts her, suddenly saddened somewhat. He averts his gaze, looking down at the floor, the chain of the die still swinging, some last memory perhaps. "Kill her. I had a chance to blast my mother into the outer dimensions of space, and my hand does not press the trigger. Do you know why?" Kylo picks his pace up, and now the two are only an inch apart, though they still, truthfully are not near each other.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I trust you."

She's unsure where this is meant to be going. She's supposed to hate him, hate this vile monster that killed Han, destroyed any semblance of order in the galaxy, and act as the very dark tie of her existence in the world. Perhaps there's a level of respect for one another from afar, somehow, though Rey cannot fathom the reasoning behind it.

Kylo looks at her - into her, more like - and brings a gloved hand up to touch against her face. It's smoothness is a jarring feel, and Rey closes her eyes, grimacing away from the touch. It's like a claw slashing down across the skin, with Snoke's power behind the touch, burning her, marring her for life.

Noise rises inside Rey's ears, a rush of blood to the head, and her heartbeat picks up, it speeds up. Kylo whispers something into her left ear, inaudible however, and the words are lost. When he pulls apart, there's nothing in his eyes, just a blankness that Rey cannot understand. The last she hears is the swinging of the chain, his withering scar, and the flash of ginger hair.

The scene shifts, and she's standing on a mountain, an iron ore landscape beneath her feet as she walks. On the horizon, a tide of halcyon rushes to meet her, a kiss of death, and Luke's face blending in with the wave.

The murmur of a heartbeat begins to take place of the other noises, ravaging and deadly. Rey's emotions gravitate towards something feasible as Luke's eyes dim, darken, blacken. She begins looking around, as if she's searching for something but cannot find what she's seeking. She tries calling out, but the cries choke in her throat, until she's spitting up sulfuric acid and biting down on harsh words that aren't helpful in the slightest. Her ears are roaring with blood flow, and the dizziness will not cease until Rey's skull is split open on the rock, festering around like ants that burrow into her nerves and wreck her endocrine system. The sky changes colors rapidly: a ferocious cardinal, a whimsical amaranthine, a decadent sapphire, a blinding halcyon, a turgid mahogany, a zealous sunburst orange, a flowing shade of carnation pink... Luke begins to blur together as if she's melting away into static, like a communication antenna's signal. She reaches out, and it's a fool's thought for someone to believe the girl could grasp onto the old Jedi from yards away amidst an iron ore field, as the face fades into the sky. Luke's voice rings in her ears, mixing with Kylo's, mixing with Leia's, and mixing with Snoke's. She's upset, Rey is enraged momentarily, that none of this is making sense. Why is she forced above all others to have to try and deal with this herself? What did she do to deserve this? A stupid little night run in with a disparaged clone in the First Order? A look at the ruined, dark knight with eyes like fire? Or the saber shattered in two, the remains that still stay in her hand?

She looks again, at Kylo is back, standing in his usual position, but now his face is that of awe.

"You saw something..." he whispers. "What did you see?"

"I don't know."

He nods. "You do. You know exactly what you saw."

A shard lies in wait. The ruined knight stands underneath the deep, churning black sea. A silver queen collapses to her knees. A bandit in the night screams. Rey's power flows free. She senses a betrayal lying in secrecy, two siblings of pain tethered together for the whole galaxy to see. Ash falls to the ground, from the sky, from the soil, and from her heart. It is slow and resolute, heralding an empire's final win of victory. In the end, two sabers, connected side by side, as the ruins of a gilded age corrupted.

"I do not," Rey says again, a lump swelling in her throat.

"You do," he insists.

There's a pause, and he whispers the word. It is not carried on the wind, nor do his lips move.

She senses it, his voice. Kylo's voice.

_An awakening._

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**Something short and introductory, as I will be doing a lot of balancing back and forth between the Resistance and the First Order, as the next chapter, which I am dual posting, is going to be from Kylo's perspective; I hope you review, follow, favorite, all of that fun jazz as I would definitely appreciate it, and I hope I do this justice, for I am certainly nervous, but I wouldn't get anywhere if I stayed in that nervousness. Cannot wait to see you again for Chapter #2: The Knights of Ren. I love you all so much! Have an amazing day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	2. Chapter 2: Battalion

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with an update that is six months late, whoopsie! So, the first chapter was from Rey's perspective, and just Rey and Kylo having another conversation through their tether, perhaps my favorite part of the entire sequel trilogy. Ashes of Kyber will not be updated until I have the entire story written, in which I am only a third of the way through the story so far, trying to nip loose plot threads in the bud before I start them and all. I am very excited for the remainder of the story, however, and for the ideas I have in my head. Please enjoy Chapter #2: Battalion!**

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Out in the void lies a lost soul.

He's seen it, staring at through reflective two-way glass, watching their movements as they glide like water. He wants to hold it, touch, kiss the edges of the lost soul. White porcelain like skin, eyes that emote a mix of secrecy, ferocity, and comfort. Their skill with the sky is impressive, and he lusts for a strength like that. _But you're stronger than this one_, the voice in the back of his head tells him, _she's nothing more than a liability, a weakling. You called her a lost soul. How is someone like her, who's lost, stronger than a Sith Lord?_

Kylo Ren does not mince his words nor his thoughts, and even with Supreme Leader Snoke gone, vanished by Kylo's own hand nonetheless, the whispers down his back seem barbed. Thorned. Titles are pretentious, he believes. If Snoke is to be such a 'supreme' ruler and commander of the Sith, how can he not sense the tirade, the war that is going on his apprentice's mind? How does he not see the true intentions? Because he does not see, he does not believe, and Kylo is to cast him down like all the other failures and regrets he's made in time's past.

There's nothing better than the feel of rebellion. He admires this rebel fleet, this... alliance that the pitiful systems have created, but the admiration comes at a distance, and at a cost. Why must his mother be such a weak, feeble, insipid creature? Her heart is unable to be turned, leading one rebellion to another, never coming around to see her foolish ways.

"And I will crush them," he says aloud. "I will crush them all."

A voice in the back of his skull says otherwise. _You won't destroy anything. You are too weak for anyone to succumb to your will, your dominion is failing, your power is failing... you puppet of ash and stars and galaxies._

Rage consumes him momentarily, and he's up, punching his fist once more through a wall, for all he sees is the unforgiving stare of red, the horrified look of Father, and the staring blues of Rey.

Rey.

He's actually called her by her name, and he enjoys watching her mouth twist and snarl. The ferociousness that rises up once again is euphoric to his soul. He chants her name, and it curls like wisps of smoke and tar and sinew onto the walls, _Rey_ the world whispers,_ Rey_ Kylo screams.

Someone else has joined him in his chamber, standing once more with the disposition of authority. Black and red. An abyss and a star. The ensnaring fire in his belly. Kylo does not need to turn his head to know it is Armitage Hux, his consolidator, his advisor. _His lover is a voice that goes unsaid on his lips._

Hux's uniform has transitioned, no longer the edgy blacks and tapering coats that swing down to the linoleum floors, but a gray, lighter, weathered, and certainly not the colors of mourning. _Let him mourn_, Kylo thinks doggedly, _it shall keep him distracted from the goal._ The brightness of his scarlet hair - blood, it is Hux's blood spilling into his lips as he bites, as he nicks in the corners that Hux keens at, the sounds higher and higher, whined pitches of pleading - overwhelms Kylo's vision, so he keeps his head steady and straight.

"Supreme Leader..." Hux begins, as he's now just like everyone else in the blasted First Order using that overtly cocky title, "I-"

"Titles are pretentious," he interrupts, raising a gloved hand, flicking his fingers down.

Hux bristles. "You're constantly too annoyed, and have a temper."

Kylo tilts his head down towards the floor, chittering. "Did you come here to scold me of my emotions, General? You talk down to me as if I'm a child."

"We..."

Hux is not given the chance to finish the statement, as Kylo gets to his feet from his perch, storming over to the commander. He grabs Hux's throat with a gloved hand, lifting him up to the ceiling. He is not willing to use the Force currently, as doing the very same thing with his hands, showing the power he exudes through muscle does it far better than a glorified word. The General kicks his feet, straining at the grip, and Kylo wants to smirk at the fear that begins to shine in Hux's eyes. Such strength brought to a simpering sob of a terrified child... Kylo works with fools and idiots for peons.

"I find it ironic," Kylo tilts his head, looking into Hux's eyes. "You normally like my rage, back then, before..." it goes unsaid, before there ever existed a girl, a girl whose name he shall utter only in the darkest of times, there used to be joyfulness between them, a relationship. Love. "And now it brings you to your knees in fright. I could do it, you know," he threatens, tightening his grip, causing Hux to sputter. "In my anger, I could break your neck in a flash. Do not disappoint me, General."

He lets Hux go, the other man collapsing to the floor, gasping and heaving heavily. There are red indentions lining his throat, where the gloved fingers press into flesh, and yet a wild look burns in the general's eyes. Kylo paces the back wall of his chambers, now resting his back against the far wall.

"You will not call me by any sort of title. There is no need."

Hux coughs, hands on the floor, and he looks up, gaze solidifying back to the usual strength. "Yes..." he hesitates, almost tripping over the very rule told not to cross, and his pale skin flushes bright pink. "Sir," he decides. "Yes sir."

Kylo lets the man to get his feet, and his eyes fall onto his saber sitting on the table where he had been seated. The rod of cold steel flushes something warm in him, a bristling feeling under the skin that threatens to spill and overflow and consume, an insatiable itch of power and destruction. He grips it, and Hux pales once more, as if the Sith would even dare to use it on his most valuable asset in the First Order. Has he gone mad?

The general is standing upright again, straining at the throat, gingerly pressing around the skin.

"Back on Crait, sir, who was it you were speaking with?"

Kylo's memory returns to the salt planet, the red dust, and the green saber. The eyes of the man who had willingly tried to kill him, the disdain that fills his veins, and the anger he is relapsed with. Her glassy stare, and the madness that surges from within her... Kylo shall not back down to Rey, not ever, and she will collapse to his because it is what he is known for, it is his destiny. The golden pair of die rests somewhere in his room now, as he shall not part with it. It means... something, yet he does not know who it belongs to, nor should it probably matter. It is a heartbeat that throbs under the skin, a murmur into a roar.

Something causes the Sith to freeze. He looks back at Hux, who's expression is nonplussed, most likely given towards his liege's own expression of denial and dumbfounded awe.

"You- you heard me?"

"You were speaking aloud."

"The connection is through the Force... you shouldn't have been able to see that..." Kylo turns away, biting on his lower lip. This must be a problem. He is unable to see her, _the girl,_ in her domain, yet there is nothing else beyond that. She has full range to see everyone, yet the two can interact with no one else in their surroundings through this connection. Is it that he is of the world in his conversations yet partly in a zone entirely different from anywhere else when speaking to her? Kylo is unsure, and there is not much he is unsure about.

"I-" he is stunned to form the right words. "Anything incriminating?"

Hux's eyes speak of hate, yet there is lightness behind them. "No, sir." A pause. "Who were you speaking to?"

Kylo's hand clenches into a fist, and he almost turns the saber on. He entertains the thought of cutting Hux in two, just to see more of the luscious cardinal river spill, but then it'll be a bothersome mess to clean up, and he chooses to leave that to the wayside. He grits his teeth in answer. "Rey."

The name is enough to ignite fireballs in Hux's gaze. Of course. It's _the girl._ The girl that ruined the First Order, the girl that brings an entire empire crippling to its knees. The girl who murders the Supreme Leader. The girl who is threatening to take Hux's Kylo away from him. He's reminded once more of blood, of bed sheets, of Kylo's built frame, of rough hands, and the sizzling hum of the saber.

"Rey..." Hux hisses, spitting onto the floor. "You have been in contact with her?"

"It's through the Force," Kylo explains. "A mental connection placed there by Snoke. When he died, it did not slice the tether into two. We're still linked, though I do not know why."

"And why were you speaking with her?"

"If she wishes to talk to me, I do not have a way to relent from its onslaught," he lies through his teeth, and he lifts the saber off of the table.

Hux's jaw locks into place, his stare directed at the floor. There's a fire coursing through his veins, a fire that burns from the back of his eyes, and a fire that lacerates the skin and exposes itself on clenched fists and bulging veins. Kylo locks onto a spot of Hux's neck - his Hux, his lovely Hux - that throbs and pulses, and the blood stirs underneath. Something in Hux's mind causes his expression to lighten, but it is serious all the same.

"Your battalion has arrived," he announces with finality, a flourish, a sweet melody darting from the word 'battalion'.

Kylo's interests are peaked, and he raises an expectant eyebrow. In all that has happened in the past few days, he has forgotten that the call had been sent out. That a missive is sent and the missive is now received.

He nods low. "Then we shall go and greet our guests."

Hux extends a hand, and a daring gaze that builds beneath his eyes, which Kylo gladly accepts. The two swiftly and briskly walk across a linking bridge, and out onto the main access ramp, adjourned adjacently from the exit terminal. Kylo's heart leaps, though the emotion he is feeling is not joy, but power, a thrive of want and lust that builds and builds, a tidal wave of strength that touches the highs and lows of the galaxy.

Standing in a line are five cloaked strangers, their cloaks in an array of different colors. From left to right, stunning and vivacious scarlet, vibrant and radiant amaranthine, sleek and stalwart gray, robust and lustrous emerald, and a blinding white. In their hands are linked sabers, though the blades are all red, the blood that shall be spilt on the remaining forces of the Resistance.

The same feeling Kylo received when Snoke's body cut clean in half begins to stir deep in his veins once more.

"Rise," Hux commands, having stepped up a little bit from the Sith.

Each of the strangers lift their heads, and remove their cloaks, each of their corresponding sabers bursting forth in a glorious stream of heat and carnal energy.

Kylo's eyes glow with lust, a fervent lust of power, and for once he feels like a god.

"It has been too long," he says, his voice hardly that of a whisper. "It has been too long."

Under the guise of steel roofs and walls, the hum of the sabers rings. The floor glows in a haze of cardinal, and Kylo closes his eyes, shuddering at the very exuding of power that threatens to swallow the corridor whole. It is time. It is time to train. It is time to bring this resisting empire down to it's knees in one fell stroke.

The Knights of Ren have returned to join the fray, and it is Kylo Ren's duty to lead them.

"My knights," he proclaims. "We have work to do."

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**The Knights of Ren are indeed going to join the fray, nd I can tell you right now that I will be including them a lot more than in Rise of Skywalker, as well as some other characters that were given completely limited screen time. Next chapter, from which I'll only post when I have the entire story written and edited, will be Leia's point of view, Chapter #3: Homecoming. I hope you all review and let me know what you thought. Have a great day! Bye! **

**~ Paradigm**


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